Donald Trump will find himself facing three sexual assault accusers instead of one if the writer who claims he raped her in the 1990s persuades a judge to let two other women testify at trial.
E. Jean Carroll went public in 2019 with her claim that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room, and sued him for defamation when he called her a liar from the White House. The former president argued last week that the other women’s claims are irrelevant to a defamation case and that their allegations don’t rise to the level of “sexual assault” anyway.
Carroll says their stories “show a consistent pattern of behavior.”
In a filing late Thursday, a lawyer for the former Elle magazine advice columnist said the testimony of the other women — both of whom went public with their claims before the 2016 election — is crucial. Jessica Leeds claims Trump groped her when they sat next to each other in first class on a flight three decades ago, while Natasha Stoynoff alleges he attacked her at his Mar-a-Lago resort when she was interviewing him for People magazine in 2005.
“Together, all three accounts illustrate Trump’s pattern of suddenly and without warning lunging at a woman, pushing his body against her, grabbing at her, and kissing her, in what constitutes a knowing and intentional sexual assault, and later categorically denying the allegations and declaring that the accuser was too ugly for him to have sexually assaulted her,” attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote.
Trump has denied attacking any of the women and claims their allegations were politically motivated.
Carroll’s defamation suit is scheduled for trial in April in federal court in Manhattan, with Trump set to be his own star witness. Leeds and Stoynoff have both been deposed and are listed as potential witnesses for Carroll.
If Kaplan succeeds in getting them in front of the jury, Trump would find the tables turned from his famous political stunt in October 2016, when he staged his own dramatic face-off. Just ahead of a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, he held a surprise event with three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct. Bill Clinton has denied the claims.
As the trial nears, both sides are making efforts to block certain evidence from being presented to the jury and to narrow each other’s lines of attack.
Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said in a separate filing late Thursday that “none of the conduct alleged by either proposed witness, Ms. Stoynoff or Ms. Leeds, meets the statutory definition of a ‘sexual assault’” under federal rules on evidence in such cases. It doesn’t fit the definition because the other women failed to testify in their depositions that Trump’s alleged conduct would have continued, Habba said.
“This omission speaks volumes – neither transcript contains any such testimony,” she said.
Kaplan included excerpts of Stoynoff’s and Leeds’s October depositions in her filing Thursday night. Stoynoff testified that Trump led her into an empty room in Mar-a-Lago.
“Then I hear the door close behind me and I turn around and he’s right here, and he grabs my shoulders and pushes me against this wall and starts kissing me,” Stoynoff said.
“And did he say anything when he started kissing you?” Kaplan asked.
“No,” Stoynoff said, adding that she had been taken by surprise and was in “complete shock.” She said she pushed him away and that he came toward her again, but that a butler entered the room before the alleged assault could continue.
Leeds said at her deposition that Trump assaulted her on flight from Texas to New York in 1979, when he was in his early 30s.
“Well, he was with his hands grabbing me, trying to kiss me, grabbing my breasts, pulling me towards him, pulling himself onto me,” Leeds said. “It was kind of a struggle going on.”
Leeds said she “managed to wheel my way out of the chair” to get away.
The allegations by both women were widely reported before the 2016 election. They said they decided to go public after hearing the 2005 Access Hollywood “hot mic” audio recording of Trump boasting that “when you’re a star” you can get away with grabbing women. Trump is also fighting to keep that recording out of the trial.
